Tag Archives: Amazon

The first post on this topic was published on August 22 (Hachette vs. Amazon--Do We All Lose?) As before...any opinions expressed here are mine as an individual and do not reflect an official stance by RMFW or its members . . .

In May, Hachette and Amazon broke away from the bargaining table and took their disagreements public. While stories about the conflict started showing up in the press, Amazon apparently took out its wrath on individual authors who happen to be represented by publishing giant, Hachette Book Group. These authors, many of whom are household names, had things like competitive pop-up ads cover their author pages, delayed shipping of books, and removal of buy buttons from some of their titles.

I sat down with author Douglas Preston (co-author of the best-selling Pendergast thriller series, as well as several fiction and non-fictions works of his own) to talk about what authors may want from Amazon.

Photo credit: Christine Preston

"We're not taking sides in this dispute, but simply asking Amazon not to target authors," said Mr. Preston. "Basically, there is a lot on the web misrepresenting our position, so this is a good opportunity to reinforce what we're trying to say."

The quiet and thoughtful writer said he decided to take action when he noticed his sales drop by 60% to 70%. "I wrote a letter hoping twelve brave authors would sign it. I've received over one thousand responses." That's how Authors United was formed.

The letter, an open missive to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, asked the online retail giant to curtail the harmful practices that were hurting individual authors. The letter went viral.

In response, Amazon started Readers United, with more verbiage to debate Mr. Preston's assertions.

Then, in the week of September 14-20, Authors United decided to take the additional step of contacting each board member of Amazon. In part, the new letter reads:

"No group of authors as diverse or prominent as this has ever come together before in support of a single cause . . ."

"We are literary novelists, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists, and poets; thriller writers and debut and midlist authors. We are science fiction and travel writers; historians and newspaper reporters; textbook authors and biographers and mystery writers. We have written many of your children's favorite stories."

"Collectively, we have sold more than a billion books. Amazon's tactics have caused us profound anguish and outrage."

Mr. Preston said, "This feels like betrayal. Amazon wants authors to put up author pages, which is mutually beneficial, but we help them sell our books by listing other authors we like, reviewing other author's books, and occasionally writing blogs for them about books we like to read. We're happy to do this because everyone benefits."

Then Mr. Preston's voice took on an edge. "To add gratuitous insult, when you go to my page and pull up one of my books, a big pop-up window emerges suggesting I might enjoy another book (not by a Hachette author) at a better price."

Mr. Preston said that he's always had warm feelings for Amazon, and is himself, a Prime Member of the on-line store. But with this conflict his feelings may be undergoing change. "They (Amazon) shouldn't block sales or inconvenience customers. I can't get my own book in less than a few weeks."

Was the second letter effective? That remains to be seen, but last weekend (September 20th) an annual secret soiree held in New Mexico for big name authors and hosted by Amazon was missing some invitations—significantly, invitations to Hachette authors or those who have publicly shown support for Authors United.

I asked Mr. Preston in August if he could see a happy ending to the dispute. "What I hope," said Mr. Preston, "is that we can create a healthy eco-system in publishing for Amazon, for Hachette, for authors to be able to support themselves and feed their families.

Side Note: Attempts to contact representatives for either Amazon or Hachette have been met with refusal and reference to public relations bulletins. While I will keep an eye on this situation, this ends my entries for the RMFW blog for a while.

Personal Note: It has been several years (decades) since I last worked on news copy, and my journalism background is very rusty. Therefore, I have to admit to writing this with bias, and let you know that any opinions expressed here are mine as an individual and do not reflect an official stance by RMFW or its members . . .

Whether you love it or hate it, big business is here to stay, and stay involved with our lives. This is the story of two giants in the publishing industry and how we as authors might be involved.

BREAKING NEWS . . .

In May 2014, the New York Times broke a news story sure to rock the publishing industry. Hachette Book Group, fresh off an anti-trust lawsuit by the government, was the first of five major publishing houses required to re-negotiate pricing issues surrounding the ebook business. And talks weren't going well.

On the surface, the lines of this dispute were clearly drawn and easy to form opinions over. Hachette, as the publisher, would set prices for ebooks in a similar fashion to pricing for hardcover books. Some ebooks would be offered for sale at $12.99 up to nearly $20. Most of these ebooks were authored by some of the biggest names in the industry – James Patterson, Malcom Gladwell, Stephen Colbert, Douglas Preston, and more—and demand for these books would easily cover the prices asked.

On the other hand, Amazon wanted the books priced at no more than $9.99. Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon has a standing phrase, "your margin is my opportunity." His focus is to bring the lowest price to everything Amazon distributes to the consumer. And that includes books.

Some problems here:

The publishers claim the right to price their own products (often developed with hefty advances, public relations campaigns, and the costly editorial superiority of large publishing houses). If Amazon is allowed to price the books at below cost, the big houses could soon be in financial trouble.

Amazon called foul over that thinking. In a printed statement the company said, "With an e-book, there's no printing, no over-printing, no need to forecast, no returns, no lost sales due to out-of-stock, no warehousing costs, no transportation costs, and there is no secondary market—e-books cannot be resold as used books. E-books can be and should be less expensive."

The Wall Street Journal weighed in on the pricing dilemma even before this latest dispute arose. In an April 2012 article, WSJ reporters wrote "publishers feared that $9.99 would cement consumer price expectations and make it difficult to charge more (for books) in the future." That fear drove competitors into an alliance between the five major publishers (Hachette, Harper Collins, MacMillan Publishing, Penguin Random House and Simon and Schuster) and Apple computer, in which a new sales model would allow higher pricing to exist across the board. That's when Amazon complained and the government stepped in. The publishers and Apple ended up with millions of dollars of restitution to pay, and the demand that new negotiations take place.

THE PR WAR BEGINS

Soon after the break down this spring, Hachette and some of its authors began reporting on the semi-secret punishing tactics Amazon was using to drive down Hachette sales on Amazon. This is significant because Amazon owns 41% of all book sales and 61% of ebook sales in the U.S. The tactics being used were:

Slow delivery of book orders. Amazon claimed Hachette wasn't sending books over on time, and Hachette claimed Amazon was holding them back from consumers.

Removal of "Buy Buttons" from some titles

No ability to pre-order expected releases

Competitive advertising on a Hachette author's page that recommended different titles (by other publishers) at a better price.

THE GLOVES COME OFF

As more and more authors found out about, and voiced concerns over, Amazon's "bullying" tactics, Amazon tried offering to pay the authors 100% of its sales of their books while the price war continued.

Mr. Preston dove into the fray with a letter that quickly circulated among the famous and not-so-famous author community. "I wrote that letter hoping twelve brave souls would sign it. I've received over one thousand responses. The letter went viral," said Mr. Preston.

On August 10th that same letter appeared as an advertisement in the NY Times and immediately faced tremendous support, and large skepticism.

Authors like Stephen King, Donna Tartt, and Philip Pullman "signed" and endorsed the letter, while Amazon called Mr. Preston "entitled" and "an opportunist." The Amazon team was referring to the successful career Mr. Preston has built as an author, and hinted that personal greed was the reason Mr. Preston may have written his letter.

NOW IT'S OUR TURN

The above notes only nick the surface of the publishing world at work. Some other salient points to ponder include:

If Amazon succeeds in cowering Hachette, will it be able to use this battle to set up negotiations with the other major publishers to its advantage?

Are consumers right in their demands for the lowest possible price on books? Is there such a thing as a "free lunch" in publishing?

As authors, are we receiving a fair deal from publishers who have little to no cost in converting our paper and hard bound books to ebooks?

In the past, Amazon had a program called "The Gazelle Project" where small publishers were pressured out of existence with similar tactics. In a Hachette published book by Brad Stone, The Everything Store, Mr. Bezos is supposed to have set the tone by saying Amazon "should approach these small publishers the way a cheetah would pursue a sickly gazelle." Since that became public knowledge, the program name has changed to the "Small Publishers Negotiation Program."

While Amazon sells 50% or more of all books sold in the United States, those sales represent only about 7% of the giant distributor's sales. Are the big five gazelles now?

I tried to reach representatives from the biggest two players in this situation. I was essentially told "no comment," and given links to press releases and public letters.

Next month, I will write up interview notes from Mr. Preston--one man, one voice who has shown once again that there is power in words. The question is, will those words stand up to legitimate, albeit, hardball tactics by Amazon?

Prior to September of 2012, my life was perfect. I had friends, my books were selling, and all was well. Then Amazon went and ruined my life. Forever.

And no, I am not being melodramatic.

Okay, I am, but just a little.

For those who have an Author Central page on Amazon, you know exactly what I’m talking about. For those who don’t, let me give you a little insight into the madness. An Author Central page is a page dedicated just to you, to your books, to your social media, to your profile and customer reviews. It’s a great one stop for all you. A writer/megalomaniac’s dream.

Except for one small thing.

It’s nothing really.

Just a ranking of you versus all the other authors on amazon.

Considering there are over 8 million books on amazon (probably a few million more since I typed that) you can see how you stack up against the population of Colorado and Nevada combined. Good times. Good times.

Now you’re probably asking how an author ranking made me into a serial killer. Well, it wasn’t hard. I was halfway there already. Amazon just added fuel to my fire, along with a target. 15,413 of them as of right now. Updated hourly. Makes it much easier when I don’t have to troll for victims…

You better watch it number 15,412. I’m headed your way.

No really. I have no designs on murdering at least 15,000 authors.

Not anytime soon. You can drop the restraining order Christopher Moore. I promise *wink*

So why in Amazon’s infinite wisdom did they start ranking authors, and more to the point, provided the same authors with said rankings? What can they and you possibly gain?

I wish I had a good answer.

The only foreseeable advantage I see, other than making us nuts (which while fun, probably doesn’t help amazon’s bottom dollar), is to grow more home-grown kindle authors and to have more people buy into Author Central, thereby, in the end, making for lower ebook prices (which equals more units sold) and no traditional publisher middle man.

While it can be easy as an author to get caught up in your author rank, because, let’s face it, we don’t get a lot of ego boosts otherwise. Most days are filled with mediocre reviews and rejection, often from my cat. He really hates when I serve him chicken and salmon cat food. You should check out his yelp reviews, they are downright catty.

But I digress; my point is the ranking system is a trap.

If you looked at my overall author ranking since it was born in 2012, you might think, hey, she must be doing all right if she’s ranked below 20,000 (as an author, the sanity question is still out). But you’d be wrong. While I make some money on book sales, I don’t even make enough to hit the poverty line from my amazon sales. That means, chances are, rank 15,415, 15,416, 15,417 and on and on probably aren’t either.

Now I’m not suggesting you don’t sign up for Author Central. They have a lot of good, helpful tools too for all authors. But remember, there is always an author ranked one number higher looking to bump you off.

And amazon offers plenty of shovels for sale.

Any other thoughts on author rank? Or better yet, anyone know where 15.232 lives?

*All kidding aside, I take any amazon ranking with a grain of salt. For one thing, we have no idea what sort of algorithm they’re using to rank authors. Does the number of books, the sales numbers, and how cute you look in a bathing suit matter? And what’s in a number anyway? Writers are bad at math. We’re lucky if we can add 2 +2, which is why publishers make royalty statements so hard to read.

J.A. (Julie) Kazimer lives in Denver, CO. Novels include CURSES! A F***ed-Up Fairy Tale, Holy Socks & Dirtier Demons, Dope Sick: A Love Story, FROGGY STYLE and The Assassin’s Heart, as well as the forthcoming mystery series, Deadly Ever After from Kensington Books. J.A. spent years spilling drinks as a bartender and then stalked people while working as a private investigator.

Did anyone else get a little flutter just saying the word? Are your hands starting to sweat?

If not, then you probably haven’t launched a book recently. You see, Amazon is now the big dog in book distribution and indie publishing (as to if this is a good thing, that’s another discussion for another time, but let me just say, you shouldn’t trust that a corporation has your best interest at heart and/or put all your pretty Easter eggs in one basket).

In their ultimate wisdom, Amazon has kindly ranked you and your sales (try and hold your applause).

In some ways it's nice of them since before ranking our sales an author would have only their publisher (which could take months) or Bookscan’s word (which is only a piece of the sales pie) on how well your book is doing or not doing.

So you were basically in the dark unless you hit some bestseller list.

Ah, it was such a saner time.

You lived your days writing instead of obsessing this or that particular number meant.

What does a ranking of 15,038 mean in terms of sales? How many books did I sell today? What does it mean when I drop 100 ranking points? Will someone show me how to work this damn DVR?

But I digress. This is not a tale of personal sales self-discovery. Okay, it is, but there is a bigger point.

This was the day my descent into true madness began (which is good to know when explaining your incoherent mumblings about sales to the guys with the white, hug-me jackets). The first few days my sales ranking hovered around 40k (for the sake of brevity, I’m going to only talk Kindle sales and not print copies). When I googled this number, it supposedly meant I was selling about 1-3 books a day (using the kindle sales rank calculator).

Cha-ching!

Yeah, I was as disappointed as you are.

Okay, much, much more. But stay with me.

I was checking my sales ranking every day, and feeling more and more desperate for sales, after all, I’d heard so many times about the horrors of a debut author’s first book tanking. I was convinced I would have to change my name, and move to Florida (Yes, I said it. Florida, a fate worse than Ohio).

Then something magical happened.

Amazon and Kensington (the publisher) worked out some deal where CURSES would be on Amazon’s month long $3.99 and under deal for the month of May 2012. Suddenly my sales ranking dropped to around 700. I hit number 2 on the bestseller list for Science Fiction& Fantasy.

For the entire month I stayed within the top 10. Suffice it to say, I checked those numbers every hour. I grew so obsessed about my ranking that I couldn’t stand to be away from the computer for long, fearing I would miss a big sales jump.

Yeah, I was a wee bit crazed.

But by June 5th my run was over, and my sales started to slump to an average of 20k once again. I still checked every day, sometimes up to seven or eight times for a nice little dip. But slowly my sales ranking obsession eased, and I could focus on writing again.

Over the next months, a couple of other books of mine were released, none setting the Amazon rankings on fire. I did see dips in my sales after certain promotions, the biggest one being when I was on John Scalzi’s The Big Idea with Froggy Style. My sales dropped to somewhere in the 5-7k range.

Which is one of the advantages of sanely watching your sales ranking, you can sometimes figure out what sort of promotional event or marketing worked. Then again, sometimes you have no idea why or what is prompting or hurting your sales.

The disadvantages are many, the main one being, everyone else can see how much you suck too!

Anyway, since Froggy Style was released in March of 2013, I stopped watching my sales ranking so much, checking in maybe once every couple of months. I stopped because, while it’s nice to know how my books are doing on Amazon, sales rankings aren’t the whole picture.

And even more important, I have little to no control over the ups and downs. I cannot control if and when someone buys my books (Yes, I have to repeat this daily, hourly even).

I was feeling much better about my writing career and more importantly myself at this point.

A ranking was no longer controlling me or my life.

And then my latest book, a romantic suspense, The Assassin’s Heart, came out to little fanfare. Except a few days after its release, RT Book Reviews gave it a 4 ½ stars as well as a gold designation, calling it ‘in a class by itself’. Odd since I’m fairly sure I’m a total hack.

After that, my ranking plummeted from 70k to 1,500 in a day. And the Amazon monkey hopped on my back once again. For three days I obsessed, didn’t write a single word, and watched as a website took control over my life once again.

As of writing this, my sales’ rank for The Assassin’s Heart hovers around 10k (I only checked for the sake of this post. I swear.)

And I’ve joined a 12-step program.

I hear admitting you have a problem is half the battle.

The other half, of course, is your internet connection.

Next time I want to talk about your author ranking on amazon, and how it can turn you into a mass murderer. In the meantime, anyone else experienced sales ranking obsession (SRO)? How do you handle it?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

J.A. (Julie) Kazimer lives in Denver, CO. Novels include CURSES! A F***ed-Up Fairy Tale, Holy Socks & Dirtier Demons, Dope Sick: A Love Story, FROGGY STYLE and The Assassin’s Heart, as well as the forthcoming mystery series, Deadly Ever After from Kensington Books. J.A. spent years spilling drinks as a bartender and then stalked people while working as a private investigator.

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